02: The Early Church Beginnings & Persecutions - Part II

INTRODUCTION

I’d like to begin this session with two passages from the Psalms encouraging believers to be familiar with history:

Psalm 77:11–12 ESV

11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old. 12 I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.

Psalm 78:4 ESV

4 We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

In fact, if you read all of Psalm 78 you’ll find a complete recap of the history of the people of God from their time in Egypt, even reviewing all of plagues up through their time in the desert and their rebellion against God up until the time of King David.

And as we said earlier, God’s faithfulness did not end with the close of the Book of Acts, nor did His superintendence of history for His purposes and to bring about His ends. So, as we learn about the history of the church, remember that it is ultimately God’s deeds we’re learning about and the outworking of His providence designed for His glory and the good of His church.

This session we’re going to look briefly at the next 150 or so years of the church which will take us up to the threshold of the reign of Constantine when things changed dramatically.

We’ll look at:

Second & third century persecutions

The martyrdom of Polycarp

Gnosticism – the first major theological challenge

The Final persecution

SECOND & THIRD CENTURY PERSECUTIONS

DATES EMPEROR MARTYRS, etc.

98 – 117 Trajan Ignatius of Antioch

161 – 180 Marcus Aurelius Polycarp, Justin Martyr

202 – 211 Septimus Severus Irenaeus

235 – 236 Maximus the Thracian

249 – 251 Decius Libelli issued to those who sacrificed

257 – 260 Valerian Origen, Cyprian

303 – 311 Diocletian Perhaps the worst of the persecutions

Interestingly, throughout the second century and part of the third, it was imperial policy not to seek out Christians, but still to punish them when they were brought before the authorities.[i]

We have written correspondence between Pliney the Younger, governor of Bithynia, and the emperor Trajan where Pliny asks the emperor’s advice on how to handle the Christians in his province – of whom there were many.

Trajan basically says it’s not worth your time to go around flushing them out but if they are exposed as Christians and refuse to recant, they should be punished. Kind of a second century “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

We have from the pen of Pliny how he handled such situations:

“This is the course I have adopted. I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit it I repeat the question a second and a third time, threatening capital punishment. If they persist, I sentence them to death, for their inflexible obstinacy should certainly be punished. Christians who are Roman citizens I reserved to be sent to Rome. I discharge those who are willing to curse Christ, a thing which, it is said, genuine Christians cannot be persuaded to do.”

So for the Church, persecution came and went for the better part of two centuries. At times she had rest but even then she did, she was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Often what brought about renewed persecution was some national crisis or desire to get back to the traditional Roman way of doing things – which always meant worshipping the pagan gods. Any time something like a natural disaster or other crisis struck, the Roman mindset was that the gods were angry with them and Christians were often seen as the reason for that.

Tertullian, a Christian apologist in the early third century wrote:

“If the Tiber reaches the walls, if the Nile does not rise to the fields, if the sky does not move or the earth does, if there is famine, if there is plague, they cry at once, "The Christians to the lions!"

He is also the one from whom we get the phrase “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

Christians were also viewed by upper class Romans as base and unsophisticated because their beliefs derived from the Jews rather than Greek philosophers. [ii]

THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP

Now I want to turn our attention to a specific church father, sort of as a representative of those who lost their lives for the faith during these years.

Polycarp was the bishop of the church at Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey, today) during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. As you may recall, the church as Smyrna was one of the seven churches in Revelation and one of only two churches that nothing negative was said about.

Another interesting thing about him is that there is a direct line from Polycarp to Christ:

Jesus Christ à John the Apostle à Polycarp

By God’s providence, we have a book called “The Martyrdom of Polycarp” written by someone who evidently witnessed the events or had access to someone who did.

By the time he was arrested, Polycarp was an old man. The judge at his trial suggested that because of his advanced age, he should just worship the emperor and be done with it.

The story goes that when Polycarp refused to do so, the judge ordered him to say, “Out with the atheists!” – meaning the Christians. Polycarp responded by gesturing to the crowd condemning him and said, “Yes, out with the atheists!”

Still the judge tried to persuade him to worship the emperor and curse Christ, assuring him he would let him go if only he would do those two things.

To this Polycarp replied with one of the most famous quotes in Christian history:

“For eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no evil. How could I curse my king, who saved me?”

Polycarp was finally burned at the stake praying aloud:

“Lord Sovereign God…I thank you that you have deemed me worthy of this moment, so that, jointly with your martyrs, I may have a share in the cup of Christ…For this…I bless and glorify you, Amen.”

I couldn’t help but remember what Christ said to Polycarp’s church in Revelation:

Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. – Revelation 2:10

This is just one example of many believers who stood firm for the gospel to the point of death in the history of the church. It’s good for us to know their stories.

Resource: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs

GNOSTICISM

Now I want to talk about one of the first theological challenges the church faced in her early years – the teaching of Gnosticism that became prevalent during the second century and for a while was a real danger to the doctrinal purity of the church.

There are two ways the church is attacked by the Enemy – from without and from within (Ananias & Sapphira).

We’ve already quoted Tertullian saying the blood of the martyrs is seed – meaning God used physical persecution to grow his church.

But have you ever considered the same is true regarding false teaching? Heresy, has been as helpful to the advancement of Christianity as burning Christians at the stake has.

Why would I say that?

Almost without exception, every church council that met or creed that was developed was a response to heretical teaching. Just as God often used the pagan nations around Israel to accomplish His purposes in the Old Testament, he continues to use those in opposition to the church to actually strengthen and grow it. The truths of Christianity are often counter-intuitive.

WHAT WAS GNOSTICISM?

At a high level, it was the belief that salvation was achieved through access to a secret teaching, which alone ensured that believers would be saved.[iii]

Gnostics believed that the highest Supreme Being, what we would call God, did not intend to create the physical world, only a spiritual one; He, it, whatever therefore created a number of spiritual beings or eons.

One of these eonswent bad, so to speak, and created the physical world.

Gnostics, therefore, believed the physical world, all matter was evil. But, since the world was created by a spirit, there are still sparks of that spirit trapped within the physical realm – in human bodies.

The goal of Gnosticism was to achieve liberation from the body and once again become fully spirit and interact with the divine.

They believed this for this to happen; a spiritual messenger must come to awaken us from our “dream.” Our spirits are “asleep” within our bodies and someone must come and wake them up so that we see reality and struggle against our bondage to the flesh and seek to be liberated from the physical realm.

In the Christian version of Gnosticism (there were non-Christian versions too) Jesus Christ was that messenger.[iv]

He came to earth to remind us of our heavenly origin, and to give us secret knowledge that we need in order to return to our true spiritual form.

Some gnostic writers argued that this secret teaching had been passed down orally (to them of course) from the apostles and that it was to be found in “veiled” form in the Bible. Only those who knew how to read the Bible in a certain way could gain access to this knowledge.[v]

This was a threat to the church because they passed themselves off as the true Christians, claiming this is what Christianity had always taught.

There are hints in the New Testament that this teaching was starting to gain a foothold in some areas:

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. – II John 1:7

But its heyday was in the second century.

In what ways is Gnosticism incompatible with orthodox Christianity?

· The created world is not evil

· The created world was not an accident but was God’s plan

· Jesus Christ was fully human in a real body of flesh and bone

· Salvation is by faith in Christ, not through the acquisition of secret knowledge.

HOW DID THE CHURCH RESPOND TO GNOSTICISM?

The chief opponent of the Gnostics during the second century was Irenaeus of Lyon (modern day France) who wrote a book called Against Heresies that specifically defended the Christian faith against the Gnostics.

One of the ways the church addressed this was the Apostles’ Creed. The basic text of this was put together around 150 A.D. It was originally called the “Symbol of Faith” and was likely recited at baptisms as a means of affirming the candidate’s beliefs.

Do you believe in God the Father almighty?

Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Ghost and of Mary the virgin, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose again at the third day, living from among the dead, and ascended unto heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the quick and the dead?

Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?

This was something a gnostic could not affirm:

· The Greek word for “almighty” - pantokrator means “all-ruling,” so there is nothing, not even the material world which falls outside of God’s rule.

· Jesus was born as a human, he did not just appear as a spiritual being which some Gnostics taught.

· “Resurrection of the flesh” also denies the gnostic notion that we will be liberated from the flesh.[vi]

The notion of apostolic succession also became important during this era because it could be shown that the apostles did not teach what the Gnostics believed. If the Gnostics were really in possession of the true gospel, why had the apostles not been in possession of this knowledge?

Irenaeus in his refutation of Gnosticism said:

Everyone who wishes to know the truth should consider the apostolic tradition, which has been made known to every church in the entire world. We are able to number those who are bishops, appointed by the apostles, and their successors in the churches to the present day, who taught and knew nothing of the things as these people imagine.”[vii]

Not every church had a bishop who could trace his appointment back to the apostles but that was not the main issue. The issue was the apostles’ teaching more so than their lineage. If your teaching does not jibe with that of the apostles, you’re off base.

So the main arguments were scripture doesn’t teach it, the apostles didn’t teach it. Both of those were important because some of the Gnostics used the scriptures in a way that twisted their meaning or claimed that it had secret, hidden meaning that only they could find. It was therefore important to point out how the apostles had understood the scriptures. So what do the scriptures say and how were they applied by the apostles and church fathers is the relevant question.

THE LAST AND GREATEST PERSECUTION

The persecutions during the reigns of Decius and Valerian had been quite severe, but when Diocletian came to the throne in 303 A.D., the church was hopeful because both his wife and daughter were Christians.

However, Diocletian hoped to revitalize the Roman Empire. To do that he wanted to impose a uniform order on the empire from customs to the military to religion – which meant the Roman gods. He issued an edict near Easter in 303 designed to end Christianity once and for all as a menace to Roman unity.

Eusebius outlines what happened:

"It was the nineteenth year of Diocletian's reign [AD 303] and the month Dystrus, called March by the Romans, and the festival of the Saviour's Passion was approaching, when an imperial decree was published everywhere, ordering the churches to be razed to the ground and the Scriptures destroyed by fire, and giving notice that those in places of honour would lose their places, and domestic staff, if they continued to profess Christianity, would be deprived of their liberty. Such was the first edict against us. Soon afterwards other decrees arrived in rapid succession, ordering that the presidents of the churches in every place should all be first committed to prison and then coerced by every possible means into offering sacrifice."

He also issued an edict setting maximum prices for merchants in an effort to combat inflation showing he was as bad an economist as he was a theologian.

At first Christians were not killed. However, when Diocletian became ill and retired, his successor Galerius turned up the heat and ordered all Christians who refused to recant to be executed.

However, so many Christians refused to recant that he finally decided he could not stamp out Christianity and relented and stopped the persecution in 311 A.D.

Coincidentally, he’s become ill with a painful disease and some had suggested to him that this was punishment from God for his persecution of the church. Given that in his edict ending the persecution he asked Christians to pray for him it seems likely this played into his decision.

This leaves us knocking on Constantine’s door.

“Perhaps what has been historically normative for over 1500 years in the West—a Christianity enjoying worldly power and influence, broadly conceived—is in fact theologically exceptional. As such, what we are witnessing is not the overthrowing or the jeopardizing of the church but rather a return to “business as usual” as the Bible and the nature of the gospel and of the church would lead us to expect.” – Carl Trueman

[i]The Story of Christianity, Justo Gonzalez, p. 41 [ii]Gonzalez, p. 51 [iii]Historical Theology, Alister E. McGrath, p. 40 [iv] Gonzalez, p. 59 [v] McGrath, p.40 [vi] Gonzalez, p. 64 [vii]McGrath, p. 41